caroljane

To MSK: If you ever decide to add a blurb to O:'s existing masthead, I nominate Adam's first two sentences here as Best.Blurb.Ever. Eloquent, instinctive, says it all. Mom being Ayn Rand of course, facing us sternly.

This was my impression as well. Is there a difference beweeen "poetic justice" and fictional wish-fulfillment? Imo the problematic in this argumentation lies in that it can be transferred to all kinds of ideologies because the term "responsibility of consciousness" can be filled with the values of differring systems. To a Marxist for example, the responsibility of consciousness (they would call it "class- consciousness") would imply freeing the "proletarian masses" from the oppressive ruling class. Let us, in a mental exercise, change the scene to a Marxist setting and put, instead of Galt, Lenin in there as the one held captive, and exchange Dagny and her friends for communist comrades wanting to free their leader. Then imagine the communist woman having this dialogue with the guard asking him about his responsiblity of consciousness (the 'proper' class-consciousness according to the Marxist ideal) and then pulling the trigger ... Women want original, provoking thought on perennially fascinating subjects. Thanks X, Michael. Stephen et al for providing it here.

Answering back again! Just you wait till your father gets home!

OK, I give up, what is TANetc?

Guys, this topic is about helping the movie succeed, and you are not even tangentially doing that right now. Ted, you never answered my question in Post#6 on Will Conservatives Help thread.

The joke is an old one. I first read it in my parents' Readers Digest in the 1960's as "I am Grimaldi". Old jokes are the best jokes.

I've developed a bad habit of using what is meant to be a funny reference: If so and so was alive today he would be rolling over in his grave. But just as a great many people miss that, I just don't get your reference to rolling on Objectivist Living. I know that having to explain a joke can kill it, but I'm so curious about what you meant. ML, I was thinking of "on a roll" and "rocking and rolling" - & also the subtext of your own joke, AR is dead but certainly alive here on OL. Thanks for forgiving my intrusion!

Tony - "exceptions that prove the rule" is maybe a whole other topic. In fact it may be the majority of the content on this whole forum. I was taught that "proving" means "testing to the utmost extent"and showing the rule to hold good. But some of Rand's rules, to me, do not bear the weight of such testing. And often in regular conversation the exceptions are seized on as examples of the arguer's particular biases, rationalizations of shaky premises, or irrelevant deviations. Carol possible irrelevant deviationist here

As a non-Iowan, if I were dead today I would be rolling on Objectivist Living. Carol could not resist, sorry

Ted, I honestly don't know of any TV news program that headlines cars driving safely. I just expanded on someone else who made that up as a humorous example. But since you have a preference for this sort of thing, I might try to find something for you. Maybe pictures of airplanes arriving on time. People grocery shopping at a clean and well-stocked store. School in session with alert students. Smiling policemen getting off work. And maybe for drama and excitement, babies playing with toys. I'll see what I can do... Michael Michael, if you do not know of such programs or newspaper stories you are obviously not knowledgeable in the area of Canadian Media. A sad lack. Compassionately, Carol

Uh-huh... Well, first of all, you need to check your premises with the authors of Who In Hell?, http://www.amazon.com/Who-Hell-Guide-Whole-Damned/dp/0679764844/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301271387&sr=1-1 According to the authors, they're both there, having a hell-of-a-time! Then, you will have to get such permission from the legal executor of her estate, His Eminence, The Peikoff. Your problem here is that he will not deign to talk with you after his agents have confirmed that you have been consorting on a notorious site for Brandenian/Kelleyite "moral tolerationists" (demons, to which he has already consigned to the Infernal Regions). Dick is also too busy palling around with his soul mate, Adolph. Finally, Ayn is too busy with her demonic collaborators on the opera project, Liberace, John Lennon, and Bill Buckley. Oh, and Conway Twitty (who has promised to get the Atlas, Part 3 booked to premiere at Nashville's Grand Ole Opery!). Sounds like a class act all around. Sir, you are obviously not aware of the upcoming Perigo/Schulman musical, Ayn is Mine, which is not only being collaborated on but rehearsed for April 1 release.Your wilful ignorance of known undisputed published sources is deplorable. I refer you to correct premises, all too apt in your case, A Reader's Reprimand, and advise you never to try to edit Wikipedia.

double entendre encore, tabernac

[quote name='Philip Coates' timestamp='1301271363' post='1302 I also find a (relative) lack of discussion on great positives in life and on this earth. For every thread on one of those, there are several "ain't it awful" threads, often about Obama, politics, depressing stuff in the world. ,,,,,, ( PS: Well, as usual, I seem to have all the other posters disagreeing with me. What is it about me, body odor? ) Phil, don't you ever read any threads but your own? Every single discussion is full of the great positives, the arts and aesthetics ones, movies, sports (I know Hockey is in a negative, almost suicidal tone but what I'm really saying is, Isn't it Wonderful?),Marriage, -these are just the ones I thought of from memory,--even the politics threads have hope and exuberance, although that is not all they have. I wish I could design you a Gloom Ignore function, but I can't, just let me say as a committed fatalist, the glass is really full, half the time.

Mr J Bigger: Re: Allegations on another OL Thread that we would not lower ourselves to read: As the above will amply demonstrate that the evil distortions and misrepresentations that you probably made are priceless, we expect that you will avoid litigation and reach a reasonable settlement. Forevermine& Lennys Attorneys at Law

My favorite graving on the headstone. See!!!!! I told you I was sick. Ba'al Chatzaf Me too. I also like, "So finally you come to visit!"

LOLOLOL However, as Miss Rand is not resident at the address you state, being instead a prominent citizen of the Heaven of her choice, I as her mindmeldual heir and Executor of her Hypothetical Estate declare that you are infringing on my copyright rights, which are right! and have just received instructions from her to sue you.

Thank you, Mae West. While we can only live part-time in the alternate fictional world of absolute justice, we can be grateful for luck and the irrational benevolence of strangers in the real world of our day jobs. Did you know that Mae West was the name of a life jacket? Your furious cat hero thinks he needs one, but he doesn't.

Can I take from this consensus that Rand was a moral relativist? I think she had some relatives that were moralists. Your relatives have a relative who is a smartassist. LOLOLOLOL. Is it genetic that women have to have the last word? As he lobbed the pitch in that she can hit out of the park. It's genetic that women know there is no such thing as the last word. If the word falls in the forest, does it make a sound? I grew up in the heaviest-wooded region of Canada. Like Simon's man, we hear what we want to hear, and disregard the rest.

Can I take from this consensus that Rand was a moral relativist? I think she had some relatives that were moralists. Your relatives have a relative who is a smartassist. LOLOLOLOL.

Can I take from this consensus that Rand was a moral relativist?

I concur with Adam. without the negatives there can be no positive; and in the narrow field of the novel, the borders between bad writing and good, between good and great, will always be fought over. Rand knew this. She chose to be a novelist. She wrote Atlas Shrugged, full of villains, not a Welcome to Reasonville tourist guidebook. She knew what she was doing. But she was human and like most authors who do exactly what they want with their novels, she also wanted admirers, not detractors of her every word choice. She wanted to eat her literary-philosophical cake and have it, too - after all, she baked it. But readers are a ruthless bunch. You can lead them to the half-full glass of water, but you can't make them drink it when they think it's half-empty.

That is how I want to go. In mid-sentence saying something literal minded. On my stone it will be graven " His last words were "I think I am dy...." " Thank you for your thoughts. Ba'al Chatzaf QUALITY CUSTOM HEADSTONES - for the hypochondriac I TOLD you I was sick -for the bitterly regretful I wish I'd spent more time at the office - for those whom the shroud fits when the bell tolls Here lies the body of William Jay who died defending his Right of Way He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he's just as dead as if he was wrong.

Michael's statement may be an exaggeration, but it reflects the implications of Rand's views on the primacy of the human will. There is a saying that any idea, taken to its logical conclusions, becomes ridiculous; and it is ridiculous to suppose that anyone who applies constant hard focus to his chosen field will inevitably end up a master at it. Such lifelong dedication in many cases produces nothing better than a polished mediocrity.There are more Casaubons than Rands in the world, in life and literature.

This crystal anecdote just keeps resonating, and resonating with me. I haven't read all of Rand's fiction, but there was a story where the heroine says, "What pain?" after winning her love after weary tortuous trials. The association with the Catholic strictures to repress pain, to redirect it, to "give it up" as a sacrifice, or to turn it on oneself, comes unavoidably to mind. How greatly she must have suffered, all alone.

Damn... I cannot believe I missed that one! Nice pickup! Engineering design is no fit subject for cheap jokes. John Galt was an engineer! Is nothing sacred around here? Put a sock in it, you guys. A magic, red one.